


Five Times (Spoiler) Wasn't on Errantry (And One Time it Didn't Matter)

by theunwillingheart



Series: The Grown-Ups Go to War [1]
Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: 5+1 Things, Existential Crisis, Full Title and Character List Withheld for Fear of Spoilers, Gen, Grief, Growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 21:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10975605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunwillingheart/pseuds/theunwillingheart
Summary: Wizardry is not the only kind of magic.Words don’t have to be spells to heal.Spoilers for Books 5-8.





	Five Times (Spoiler) Wasn't on Errantry (And One Time it Didn't Matter)

**Author's Note:**

> **Full Title:** Five Times  Mr. Millman Wasn’t on Errantry (And One Time it Didn’t Matter)
> 
> “Are you on errantry?”  
> “No. But I know some people who are.”
> 
> Disclaimer: Young Wizards is Diane Duane’s work of sub-creation, not mine.

**1\. Cassie**

She was his best friend in junior high.  But it was hard, sometimes, being friends with someone so talented.

“I envy your gifts,” he’d admitted once, sitting next to her on the swings at their neighborhood park.

“Well, I envy yours,” she’d replied, kicking herself lazily back and forth.

Robert had snorted at that.  “What gifts?” he’d asked.  “Last I checked, I couldn’t make flowers grow by talking to them, or create fire with my bare hands.”

She had stopped and turned to look at him intently with those shocking blue eyes of hers.  “But you figured out what I was almost as soon as you met me,” she said.  “Most nonwizards don’t notice.  You know, I haven’t even told my parents.  And so far… they don’t suspect anything.”  She sounded both relieved and forlorn. 

He shook his head.  “It was just obvious to me.  I wouldn’t really call that a gift.”

“I would, Rob.  That… that perceptive kindness that you have, it’s…”  She took a deep breath, let it out.  “All the kids at school had given up on me as a total nutjob.  But you saw me for what I was, and you befriended me.  I can’t possibly tell you how much that meant.  Still means.  You know.”

He had ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed.  “No problem,” he’d muttered sheepishly.  She’d laughed.

 _Not fair of me to complain,_ he’d thought then.  He knew quite well that her gift could also be a burden at times, that wizardry always had a price, and that sometimes the price was your life.  He worried about her constantly, but she would always remind him, “Gifts are to be used!”

A week later, she didn’t show up at school.

There had been distraught parents, and police, and tracker dogs in the woods.  He had been interviewed.  No, he’d said, he didn’t know where she was.  No, she hadn’t seemed distressed before she’d vanished.  No, she hadn’t contacted him.  He wanted so badly to tell them what he knew—that she had likely left on errantry, that her gift had finally gotten her killed—but he couldn’t.  He couldn’t even tell her family.

They never found a body.  He mourned anyway, alone.

For a while after that, he stopped talking to people, stopped noticing things—it hurt too much.  _Just figures,_ his classmates had whispered in the hallway.  _It seems crazy is contagious._

But he couldn’t wallow for long.  “Gifts are to be used,” she’d said.  If she could use hers, even unto death, he could learn to use his.

 

**2\. Jennifer**

He’s sitting in his small student apartment, studying the day’s lecture notes, when he hears a knock at the front door.  He opens it to find a disheveled, dirty-looking woman in multiple layers of clothing standing on his doorstep.

“Friend of wizardry,” she says, breezing through the formal address, “I’m on errantry, and I greet you.”

“Couch is free,” he replies—an informal response, but one he gives so often that it feels like a formal ritual.

“Thanks.”  She walks in and immediately lies down on his couch.

He doesn’t pry, but he can’t help but wonder.  All the other wizards he knows are established in some way—have jobs, have homes.

“The streets need a wizard on call as well, friend,” she’d told him once.  “But every now and then, I need somewhere warm to crash.  Thanks for that, by the way.”

She’s gone the next morning, before he wakes up, the way she always is.  _A shame_ , he thinks, as he eats his breakfast.  _We never get the chance to talk, and I’m sure she has a lot of stories to tell._

 

**3\. Kit**

“Mr. Millman?”

He looks up from his paperwork to see a stocky, Hispanic-looking boy standing in front of the desk from which he’s been working for the day.

“Hi… I’m Kit Rodriguez,” he says, offering his hand to shake.  “I know you must be busy, but I want to ask you something before my free period is over—if that’s alright.”

“Sure thing, as long as you keep it brief,” Robert says, “I have to hop to the next campus in about fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”  The boy sits down.  He struggles for a moment, then says, “You’ve been seeing my friend, Nita.”

Robert frowns.  “I’m not allowed to divulge any details about-” he starts.

“No, no, sorry,” Kit says hurriedly.  “That wasn’t meant as a question.  She told me she’s seeing you.  And I’m not here to pry, really I’m not…”  He swallows.  “It’s just… her mom died, right?  And at first she was sad.  We were all sad.  But now, she just seems… numb.  Apathetic.  It’s not like her at all.”

Robert waits, letting him talk as he needs.

“We’re _really_ good friends,” he continues, “and we usually do a lot of—of projects together.”

 _Huh,_ Robert thinks, hearing the meaning behind the hesitation.

“Anyway, she doesn’t seem interested in that at all, anymore.  Or in anything, really.  I’m so worried about her.  I was wondering… is there anything I can do to help?  At all?”

Robert sighs and leans back in his chair.  “Watching someone grieve is never easy,” he says.  “The temptation is always to try to force the pain away, or encourage them to try harder to be happy.  That approach ends up backfiring more often than not.”  Kit nods.  “But at the same time, you can’t just abandon your friend to struggle by herself.”

“So what, then?” Kit asks, clearly frustrated.  “I hate to see her like this!”

Robert sighs again.  “The best thing you can do is keep reminding her that you’re there in case she needs you.  Don’t impose—give her space to mourn.  But she needs to know that she can come to you for help.  Other than that… I’m afraid to say there’s not much you can do but wait, and try to understand.”

Kit sits still for a while, mulling this over.  Finally he says, “Yeah… I can do that, I think.  Thanks.”

“Anytime.  Have a good one.”

Robert watches Kit’s back as he leaves.  _Wizard partnership_ , he thinks.  _It must be horrible to have to work alone, after having been part of such a close team._

He suddenly wishes he could join Kit on whatever he’s surely undertaking by himself, but he knows it would do no good.  It’s not his place, to partake in spell work, and nonwizards don’t go on errantry.

So he gets up from the chair, packs his files inside his bag, and takes another bite of his bagel.  Then it’s off to another anonymous room in another school that needs him.

 

**4\. Nita**

He had realized she was a wizard partway through their first meeting.

As usual, there was nothing about her external appearance that had clued him in to it.  On the outside she looked to him much as she must have looked to everyone else—an average American teenage girl, dark-haired, pretty, a little tall for her age.  Normal clothing, normal hairstyle, normal everything.  Ordinary.

She had been guarded at first, polite but clearly skeptical.  Robert could practically read the look on her face: _Yeah, I’ll tick this box, if I have to.  Just one more thing I don’t want to deal with, but have no choice about.  My life is already a misery.  So why not?  Go ahead._

There had been some general discussion about school, her family, her friends.  Then they’d started talking about her mother, and the circumstances of her death.  Nita had begun to close up, draw into herself, offer shorter and shorter answers.

Then Robert had noticed the bracelet.

It was a delicate, glittering thing, all hung with colorful little charms.  She was beginning to fiddle with it, twisting the charms this way and that.

“That’s a beautiful bracelet,” Robert had said, nodding toward Nita’s wrist.

Nita had started, then looked down.  “Uh, thanks,” she’d said.

“Was it a gift?” he had asked softly.

Nita had shaken her head.  “No, it’s… I made it.”

Robert was impressed.  It was clearly intricate, painstaking work.  “Do the charms mean anything?” he had asked, curious about the strange symbols.  They hadn’t seemed to fit into any system of iconography that he recognized.

At this, Nita had gone totally silent, and her eyes had begun to dart back and forth like those of a trapped animal.  _Strange,_ Robert had thought at that, _of all things to freeze up on, why this?_

 _And why not lie, if the truth is unpleasant?  Make something up?_   Robert knew his kids lied to him all the time, for all sorts of reasons.  Often the lies were, unintentionally, more revealing to him than the truth would have been.  But as far as Robert could tell with his practiced eye, Nita had not lied once during their conversation.  Given incomplete answers, maybe, failed to elaborate.  But no lies.  _Huh._

And that’s when he’d caught on.

“Don’t worry,” he’d said then, trying to put her at ease.  “I probably should have explained at the beginning—my job is just to have a conversation with you, to get you thinking.  Nothing is on the table unless you want it to be there.  If you don’t like a question I ask you, or if you don’t want to talk about a certain subject, you can just say so, or refuse to answer.  I won’t press you.”

“Okay.”  He could see her visibly relax.  “Thanks.”

After that, things had gotten easier.  Paradoxically, the assurance that Robert wasn’t there to pry into her private life had made her more willing to open up.  Slowly but surely, they began to make progress.  Still, the sight of that bracelet always sent a stab of pain through Robert’s heart.  _Bad enough to lose your mother at that age_ , he would think to himself, _but to have all that power, and still not be able to do anything about it… how awful._   For he was sure that Nita would have at least tried to save her mother, and he suspected that the bracelet had something to do with that.  He never asked about it, of course.  It was her errantry, and she didn’t have to divulge anything about it to him.

She’s done with their regular sessions, but she still smiles when she sees him in the hallway, takes time out of her day to stop by his desk and say hi.  It’s unusual—very few of his kids will do that.  Many of them are too embarrassed to be seen associating with the school “shrink”.  Some of them even avoid him when he walks by, turning their faces away, or hurrying off in the other direction.  To them, Robert is a painful reminder of a time, and a part of themselves, that they would much rather forget.

He doesn’t take it personally.  As long as he’s helping, he doesn’t need thanks, or recognition, or praise.  And he’s okay with that, being a part of their worst memories.  He’s okay with that.

**5\. Dairine**

Robert fiddles with a 4x4x4 Rubik’s cube while he listens, making sure to glance up from time to time to assure the girl in front of him that he’s not tuning her out.

Dairine Callahan is sitting with her legs folded up onto her chair, her arms around her knees.  She’s a tiny, pale, scrawny thing, but appearances can be deceiving.  To Robert, Dairine’s posture, her demeanor, her tone of voice—all punctuated by her shock of red hair, tied in a ponytail high on her head—are reminiscent of nothing so much as a bomb about to explode.

She’s talking a mile a minute without letting up, at a pressured pace that would concern Robert for an episode of mania if he weren’t aware that this is Dairine’s baseline.  She’s a formidable intellect, and sometimes it seems like her mouth can’t keep up with her brain.

“And I told her I was sorry, afterwards, and then she _forgave me_ , right away-” Dairine is saying in her usual rapid-fire way, “-like it was nothing, like it was _no big deal_.  But Nita’s just _like that_.  Even though I’m so nasty to her, she’s so patient with me, and so understanding-” Dairine wipes her eyes on her sleeve, then keeps going, seemingly unfazed, “-I’m _nothing_ like that.  And the worst thing is, I _know_ I’ll do it again.  I’m always saying awful things, then telling myself I’ll never do it again.  But I always do.”  She sighs, looking genuinely unhappy.  “I don’t know how anyone puts up with me.  It’s not like I want to be like this, but I can’t help it!  It’s just harder for me to be _good_ than it is for Nita.”  Then finally, in a small voice, “I think I must be broken, or something.”

Robert smiles ruefully.  “Who isn’t?” he asks.  “But I see what you mean.  There’s little worse than being caught making the same mistakes over and over again, and feeling helpless to stop.  But if I may be a bit of a stinker, and over-analyze your word choice… You used the word ‘broken’, soon after wondering how people ‘put up with you’—as if you see yourself as a malfunctioning part in a system.”

Dairine shrugs.  “Everyone’s supposed to have a purpose, right?” she asks, looking down at her knees.  “But I don’t think I’ve been fulfilling mine very well.”

“Hmm…” Robert twists his cube back and forth, thinking.  “Maybe, maybe not.  But either way— Dairine, you’re a human being, not a computer.” 

Dairine gives him an amused look.  Robert raises his eyebrows.  “Alright, I take that back,” he says.  “What I mean is, you aren’t some dumb manufactured machine, like a laptop-”

Dairine grins.  “I’m not sure it’s wise to say things like that in the present company.”  She nods toward Robert’s new laptop, closed and plugged into the wall behind his desk.  He’s been struggling to make the transition to electronic charts after years of resistance.  It’s probably just the power of suggestion, but for a moment he’s convinced that the thing looks offended.

“Sorry,” he says offhandedly, then continues.  “Dairine, people are not like things.  There aren’t certain specs we have to meet to avoid being discarded.  Everyone’s different—everyone comes with their own unique challenges, and everyone takes their own time overcoming them.  And no one is disposable, no matter how much they might feel that they are.”

Dairine nods, her eyes glistening, at a loss for words for once.

“Be patient with yourself,” Robert says kindly.  “I know it’s hard, but beating yourself up is not going to get you where you need to go.”

Dairine wipes her eyes again.  “Sure,” she says.  Then, in her inimitable fashion, she smiles wickedly at the puzzle in his hand.  “Bet you I could solve that in under fifteen seconds.”

“Don’t you dare,” Robert says, sticking his tongue out at her.  “It’s mine.  I can do the normal ones okay, so it’s just a matter of time with this one…”  He twists it back and forth and nearly goes cross-eyed with the effort.  Dairine snickers.

“Go ahead, laugh all you want,” Robert says.  “Stuff like this is how old fogeys like me keep our minds engaged.  New challenges keep the brain healthy, they say.”  He pauses, getting an idea.  “In fact, a new project or experience might help you out of your rut as well.  Nothing like a little change of pace to give you a different perspective on things.  How about it?”

She mulls this over for a bit.  “Does it have to be an errantry?” she asks.

“Not at all,” he assures her.  “It could be something as simple as a new hobby, or a trip-” He looks up to find that Dairine has risen from her seat, an excited expression on her face.

“Yeah, _yeah_ ,” she’s saying, “That could be _exactly_ what— Thank you, Mr. Millman!  That gave me just the _coolest_ idea— Gotta go!”  She grabs her backpack from beside her chair and darts out into the corridor.

Robert allows himself the briefest pause to process that strange exit.  _Hope I didn’t just provoke some kind of disaster._

He shrugs, puts down the cube, and opens the screen of his laptop.  He might as well get started on his note before he starts to forget their conversation— with Dairine, there’s always so much to remember.

 _System updating,_ says the laptop display, in a tone he could swear is almost smug.  _Now processing update: 1 of 553._

“Oh come on!” Robert exclaims.  “Don’t tell me you took that comment personally!  I said I was sorry!”

His laptop continues to process.  There is a pause that feels pensive and considering.  Several minutes pass.

 _Now processing update: 2 of 553_ , says the laptop mulishly.

“ _Fine._ ”  Robert rolls his eyes, then pulls out some leftover pages from his old system and begins to write.  He’s always preferred paper charts, anyway.

**+1**

Immediately after he gets off the phone with Nita, he jots down a list of people to meet.  If there is anything he can do, any support he can provide, he wants those fighting at the front lines to know that he’s available.

Tom and Carl are the last wizards on his rounds.  When he’d called earlier that day to ask if he could bring some food over, Carl had said yes but had sounded strained.  Now, standing on their porch with a blueberry pie, he can hear that the situation has not improved.  Agitated voices are coming from inside the house.

“… packed a _bag_?”

“I can’t access my claudication anymore, Carl-”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it-”

Robert is wondering whether he should turn back and try again tomorrow, when the front door opens.  Tom is standing there, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and for a moment the two of them stare at each other in surprise.

“Tom, no, get back here,” says Carl’s voice from inside the house.  Tom stumbles as if being pulled back by the strap of the bag.  Carl’s head appears in the doorway.

Robert steps back.  “Is now a bad time?” he asks.

Carl shakes his head.  “Actually, I think we need someone like you.  Help me talk some sense into him, would you?”

Robert steps hesitantly inside, and Annie and Monty both rush to block the door behind him.  _No escape now_ , he thinks glumly.  “What’s going on?”

“Tom, here,” Carl says, annoyed, “has _freaked_ and is trying to _bail_ _on me_.”

Tom scowls.  “We’ve been over this.  I was earlier latency than you, Carl-”

“Not by that much!”

“Let me finish!” Tom takes a steadying breath.  “I’m losing it faster than you are.  And today,” he swallows, then continues in a flat tone.  “Today’s my last day.”

“I don’t care,” Carl says stubbornly.  “You’re not going anywhere.”

Tom growls with frustration.  “You don’t _get it_ , do you?  You’re going to have to hide what you’re doing from me, Carl; I’m going to slow you down.  And if I stay in this house any longer… I’m going to start screaming.”  He turns toward the door again.  “I’ll stay with my relatives in the area, tell them we had an argument.  It wouldn’t be untrue, at this point.”

Carl darts forward.  “Tom Swale, I will spend every last drop of my wizardry keeping you here-”

“That’s idiotic!  That makes no sense-”

“ _You’re_ the one who’s not thinking straight-”

“Scream what?” asks Robert quietly.

They both stop and turn to look at him.

Robert nods at Tom.  “You said you were going to start screaming.  Scream what?”

Tom goes pale.  There is a long pause.  “None of it is true,” Tom says, in a small voice.  “Please,” he turns to Carl.  “You have to let me go while I still know _that_ , at least.”

Carl’s voice has gone quiet as well.  “No.  I want to know, Tom.  Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Just…” Tom shakes his head.  “No Powers.  That there aren’t really any Powers, or They don’t care, or…”  He takes a shuddering breath.  “And that the universe is going to end right now, no matter what we do, the way it should have ended billions of years ago, before Life could take hold…”  Now that he’s started, he doesn’t seem able to stop.  “And there will be no one left even to remember us.  So it was one long, drawn out joke, was it?” he asks angrily, looking up at the ceiling.  “Well, ha, yeah, guess what, _no one’s laughing!_   Good riddance!”

He turns on Carl.  “And _you_ ,” he says, almost seething with rage.  “You’re so sure you want me to stay?  Well, I’ve got news for you, _Mister Romeo_ —you didn’t know me before I was a wizard, and by the time this is over, you’ll wish you’d never known me at all!”

At that, Tom stands panting, spent.  He gazes at the front door, completely defeated.  “Just let me go, Carl,” he says, like a man who is waiting to die.  “Let me go.”

The silence that follows is terrible for all of them.

“Me too,” Carl says softly.

Tom turns toward him, uncomprehending.

“I’ve been having those thoughts too, Tom.  Maybe not as bad as you are, yet, but…”  He shakes his head.  “I thought I was alone.  I’m so glad to know it’s not just me.”  Carl laughs shakily, runs a hand over his face.  “Thanks for telling me that.  I actually feel much better, now.”

Tom just stares at him.

“And as for having to hide things from you,” Carl continues, “I keep trying to tell you, there are ways to work around that kind of thing.  Wizards do it all the time, in unfriendly households.”

“But it’s cumbersome, more difficult—”

“Worth it.”  Carl looks directly at him.  “Worth it, to have you here.”

Tom’s eyes are wide and full of tears.  “I’m sorry,” he says.  “I… I don’t deserve to know you.”

“Nor I, you.  Yet here we are.”

Tom shakes his head.  “Here we are, huh… Okay.”  Slowly, he removes the duffel bag and places it against the wall.  He turns to face Robert, looking somewhat ashamed.  “Sorry that we put you though that.  And thank you so much.”  He glances at Carl, then back.  “You really made the difference.”

Carl looks at Robert with no small amount of wonder.  “That was really something, Rob.  You knew exactly what to say to resolve that mess.  Wish I knew how to do that.  What’s your secret?”

Robert looks back at them and thinks of the work he does in dim, abandoned offices for hours on end.  He thinks of kids whose parents were taken too soon, and kids who had needed to be taken away from their parents, and kids with their whole lives ahead of them who had lost the will to live.  He thinks of addiction, and broken homes, and unthinkable, cruel violence.  He thinks of all the children he will never forget, no matter how much they may want to forget him. 

To him, the exercise of his gift has never been explosive or flashy or impressive.  And whenever he invokes the Powers for help, the universe never seems to be listening.

“I may not be a wizard,” he says eventually, “but this darkening of the heart, this clouding over of the soul—and how to move through it to what lies beyond… well, I guess you could call that _my_ specialty.”  He smiles.

They smile back, grateful.

“So,” says Carl, “about that pie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Adolescent psych is one of the toughest fields to work in. Shout out to all of the real-life Mr. Millmans out there.


End file.
